[Page 336]

[Page 337]

[Page 338]

[Page 339]

For those weaned of milk For those shredded by flint And for their dripping blood At the head of streets in front of their parents, Eli, Eli… For the devastated communities And the destruction of those who sanctify God, Bound to the elements of the flame The skin of the glory of Israel. Eli, Eli…

Translator's footnotes:

1. The Hebrew equivalent of ‘My God, My God.’ Return
2. Author's footnote: From ‘The Day of the Kaddish’, published by Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 5717 Return

Let the Gentiles not see us weeping, let them not hear our mourning and groaning From the bodies that were flogged with desperation, and groan and they are on their fallen knees; After their outcry at the blood, let the bleeding not be sweet to them. And not even the comfort of those who are adherents of subjugation, we will not take solace. Just like a hidden treasure, in our affection there is an accounting, and an awareness of the potent fire. Better to allow enemies to see us as fully mouthed, and strong as rocks, And in our eyes we see the darkness of the abyss, and the refuse from battlefield From the day of Rome to the day of the German, and eventually to his day of being an Edomite and Arab. And the sound of our bodies in the street. Each body alone like the bodies of malign avengers, Coming out of Bar Yohai's cave and coming with full force in silence. Every body of this kind is a cannon for the future in uniform, on the fields of martyrs who plowed it by the sweat of their brow, and where they are imprisoned by the blood of their early patriarchs. And should this type of body be approached by a scourge and conqueror, who has put all his riding gear and fighting instruments deliberately against us, it will go down his throat with a fiery judgment. And even should the enemy grow in numbers in order to inflict a significant carnage among us we will not surrender, and we will not turn away.

Author's footnote:

1. From the book, The Streets of the River, with the permission of the poet who visited Zolkiew. Return

With trembling and respect, meant to bestow honor, and with a deep weariness, I open this first assembly of the Émigrés of Zolkiew in Israel. During this time we will be able to unite with the memories of martyred brothers and sisters whose ashes have been scattered on every wind, along with our memories of the magnificent congregation which was erased from the face of the earth. The image of Zolkiew lives on in our memories. Zolkiew was beautiful, its streets and buildings were beautiful, and its surroundings were beautiful. Most prominent was The Great Synagogue which symbolized the Zolkiew of those days. The spirit

[Page 341]

of life and action percolated in its midst and produced great Torah Sages. Even young people cultivated an international vision in their souls and, circumscribed by the times, proved that they were ready to bring the spirit of the city into being.

Five thousand Jews lived and survived in Zolkiew for three-hundred years. The city's ancient traditions and its rich spiritual world could not act as a bulwark at the time the murderous Nazis wielded their axes against Polish Jewry. Our town also drank from the poisonous hemlock up to its end. Her sons were pure and honest. They could not conceive, nor did they even imagine how deep was the abyss of hatred and wickedness and the level of cruelty inflicted on them by these murderers. It was only when they were seized in the streets and exposed to reality did they understand that the count of the number of years in their town had come to an end, and that they were the last generation to see it in its glory and destruction at the same time.

The Nazis killed the people of the town through perverse means. Jews were led to slaughter while still holding on to their faith in their hearts and the prayer of Shema Israel on their lips. Those who attempted to flee for their lives when they saw that evil had settled upon them also returned their souls to their creator. They were caught in their homes or hiding places. They died anonymously in the extermination camps, or in the grove of the Boork. The destruction of Zolkiew's people was accompanied by a tearing down of all cultural assets and the spiritual treasures. The synagogue and houses of learning went up in flames. Their ashes were commingled with the murdered ones as if the scourge sensed that perhaps the spirit will return to the flesh if he left the buildings on their hillocks. A time came when the scions of the city stopped to apprehend whose fate might be better than another's: the one who was dead, or the one in whom there still was life, before the last traces of hope and fate of her people melted away in the maw of the earth. If they were allowed to survive, they would become emissaries of the killed, to tell the world about the Holocaust.

A small number of them are with us now, and it is a miracle how they wrestled with death and overcame it. The community of Zolkiew was eradicated from the map. It no longer exists, but the memory of our martyrs will never leave our hearts.

Let us all rise today and unite with the memory of the martyrs of the community of Zolkiew. May their memories be for a blessing!

From the contents of a letter from Herman Lichter, I became aware that Hanoch is living in Moscow and here I am, rushing to provide him with some details regarding our plight. First I am notifying you that the following members of your family remained alive: Michael, his wife and children, and also

[Page 342]

your younger brother. Certainly, you can describe for yourself this tragic fate that has overcome us. Dante's descriptions of Gehenna are like the covering on a piece of garlic in comparison to what has befallen us. I give you my solemn promise that everything I will say and write is credible, and what I will write will be like nothing compared to reality. The 50 Jews who were rescued from the surges of enmity and willful sins of man and remained alive, are broken people, fragments of life, who will die if they are not given help. Therefore, after the events and efforts of the underground in the depths of pits and cellars during 16-20 months, a man can emerge into the light of the sun in order to see the bitterness of his fate. However, we are forbidden to lose hope, and we have emerged to begin life anew. Certainly you want to know details and relayed messages, and therefore I will give them to you in whatever measure is possible.

Following are the names of the survivors: the Patrontacz family without their parents; Leib Lichter and his wife; Schwartz (son-in-law of Reitzfeld), his wife and daughter; the wife and daughter of Ephraim Landau; the driver, Lerner; Blumenfeld (son-in-law of Hochner); the two daughters of Reiman; the Witlin family (he, his wife and daughter); a family from the village; Adek Lichtenberg, who fled from the Lvov camp ten days before the entry of the Red Army and his hid with his father, Izhu Zager, in the forests. Adek was seized in Zolkiew by the Germans on June 13, 1944 and brought to the camp in Lvov from which he successfully escaped. His father fell in June 1944.

Among the others who remained alive were a girl from a village whose name is Zinger; two Watsner sisters, the daughters of a Jew from a village; Dora Watsner, wife of Astman; my wife and our daughter and I. Others are friends of the owner of the pharmacy, Shatkel and his wife (originally from Lvov) and a few other Jews who were not from our town; Mrs. Shtraich, her daughter Basha and Henik Wachs are located in the vicinity of Warsaw. Apart from Milo Rukhfleisch, who is living anonymously in the Ural Mountains, not one of the intelligentsia from the town, remained alive. They fell like flies under a hail of bullets. The elderly Dr. Wachs went insane. Feliks Czaczkes fell in the forest near Mosty. His wife Iga and Kuba Czaczkes, who were caught in November 1943 in Zolkiew, were killed in the Lvov camp. We were subjected to four Aktionen of extermination.

1. In April 1942 they took approximately 700 Jews who were incapable of working due to illness or old age, and sent them to Belzec where they were killed by electrocution.
2. In October 1942 about 700 Jews were seized either in the streets or in their homes and taken to Belzec. The Nazis killed Otek Schlusser and his wife in this Aktion, and Lula Fertig in her house, and then plundered their assets. About 300 people were killed at that time.
3. On March 25, 1943, the dismemberment of the ghetto began. Everyone who had not been killed in the ghetto between October 1942 and March 25, 1943 died from spotted typhus. Anyone taken to the labor camp, as it were, or did not hide with Christians, was put to death on that day in the Boork. It was terrible for us, for at every minute we saw death staring us in the face. Our limbs held us up with difficulty, and it was a miracle that we reached

October 25, 1944, the day we were liberated thanks to the Red Army. I will never forget the day we were liberated. To my last day I will give thanks to the Soviet Army which saved the lives of the remnants of our brethren who miraculously remained alive.

I offer you my sincere good wishes, and give a sign so you know about our lives and the calamity that has befallen our city.

Perhaps you might know the address of Iziya Fish who lives in New York or Brooklyn. He is the son of Mrs. Fish who used to live opposite the pharmacy of Drelitz, whose husband left her, and took their daughter with him to America. To our great sorrow, both Mrs. Fish and her daughter Rosa were exterminated in April 1943. Visas arrived from America two days after their death, containing permission to enter America according to the exchange program, but they were too late for the party.

Yours,
Joseph Rosenberg

Author's footnote:

1. The first letter from Zolkiew about the destruction of the city, to Meir Melman in Moscow. (Translated from Polish). Return

I am one of the few survivors of the Holocaust from Zolkiew, and I feel a personal responsibility to recall what the martyrs of our city did just before the outbreak of the war:

About two hundred Jewish families who had fled before the Nazi invasion of Western Poland took refuge in Zolkiew. The people of Zolkiew helped these refugees get settled in the city. However, when the Soviet rulers arrived, they seized all of the refugees in one blow and prepared to send them to distant areas in Russia. All the Jews of Zolkiew immediately set out to provide help for these refugees. The locals brought food, clothing, and a large amount of money to the departure point for the refugees, as provisions for the distant trip they were destined to make.

A committee was quickly formed to send food packages to the refugees at their places of exile in Russia. Three months before Passover, the committee koshered a flour mill to use for Passover flour, from which to bake matzos. Every one of the refugees received a package of matzos and

[Page 344]

food, weighing eight kilograms. There was no delay in the delivery and the packages reached us even before Passover began. For the refugees who were fortunate enough to receive these packages, we were encouraged by the sense of unity and concern. During 1939 and 1940, in addition to the Help Committee, individuals sent many packages of food to the refugees as well.

I met some of these refugees after the war. They could not forget what the Jews of Zolkiew had done on their behalf. The Jews of Zolkiew carried out this support work with feelings of warmth and responsibility as if they felt that the hangman was standing over them, to implement the extermination of the Jews in the city.

Zolkiew is approximately forty kilometers from the Soviet Russia-German border of 1939.

It is therefore no wonder that the activity in the city increased a great deal even on the first day on which war broke out between Germany and the Soviets, June 22, 1941.

Freight trains and other vehicles, tanks and designated artillery hitched to horses reached the city.

The residents of the city were in great fear after these first incursions of the war. The worrying by the Jews was by far the greatest among the citizens. Because of the closeness to the front, the Soviet régime did not manage to implement their draft in its entirety.

In the wake of unending airborne attacks by the Luftwaffe, many of the Jews of Zolkiew gave up on the idea of fleeing to the East. The few who tried to leave were blocked on their way by Ukrainian loyalists who struck terror through their acts of murder, and arrested the flight of others.

[Page 345]

Leib Weichert and his son, both from Zolkiew, were murdered on their way to Lvov during the first days of the war. This incident occurred in Zawoysko near Lvov. The news from the front grew worse each day. By the fourth day after the outbreak of the war, all of the government institutions were forced to evacuate from the city. It seemed that very soon Zolkiew would be captured by the enemy. However, on the following day, a favorable change took place at the front and the Soviet authorities returned to the city, but to the ache in our hearts, this lasted only two days.

The fear of the Jews especially grew stronger, as they harbored the essential thought that the Germans were coming. As the Germans drew closer to the city, every Jew went their separate way, hiding in cellars and in other camouflaged places. Because of the airborne assaults and cannon shell fire, they recognized that their end was drawing near, and they would no longer get to see the people from whom they parted. They felt they were standing at the edge of a pogrom and extermination.

The Germans broke into the city on the seventh day of the war, on the Sabbath, June 28,1941, after a battle that lasted a whole day.

The first victim of the cruelty of the Germans was the fortified Synagogue that had been built back in the days of King Sobieski, and after whom it was named.

The Germans immediately set fire to the Synagogue upon their entry into Zolkiew. The fire could not take hold completely because of the solid way the building was built, with thick walls constructed from stone and which rested on stone foundations. Only a few wooden items and furniture inside it were consumed.

In their fiery anger at having failed to do what they had set out to do, the Germans brought cans of benzene into the synagogue and lit them on fire. Despite the strong explosion, they still did not succeed in tearing down the walls. The Germans decided to exact vengeance on the Jews because of this. When the Synagogue finally went up in flames, the Germans seized ten Jews, with the intent of throwing them into the Synagogue to burn in the fire.

Luck played in favor of these hapless Jews, because suddenly a German officer appeared who let them go, and saved them from this cruel death.

The ancient synagogue had been desecrated by the Scourge, and smoke continued to pour out of it for several days.

In the meantime, even more cruel and frightening dangers engulfed the Jews of the city.

The Soviets had imprisoned a variety of prisoners in the local jail. After the Nazi capture of Zolkiew, several corpses of Ukrainians were found in the jail. The Ukrainian nationalists took advantage of this fact to incite the mobs against the Jews for purposes of inciting a pogrom.

[Page 346]

A central purpose of the fire was to serve as the real funeral of the so-called heroes who were murdered in jail.

Inciteful speech against the Żydokomuna^[2] and against Jews in general, was heard in the cemetery.

According to the malevolent plan that had been prepared in advance, the incited mob was to fall upon the homes of the Jews. Preparations for this were carefully designed. The speeches were full of poisonous hate, and the mob was led off to ‘do its work.’

A peripheral event saved the Jews this time as well. On the afternoon of Sunday June 29,1941, the new German officer in charge issued an order allowing citizens to be outdoors only from six o'clock in the morning to six o'clock in the evening. Because of this, the disappointed mob had to disperse immediately after the funeral ceremony in order to return to their homes.

The great extent to which the Ukrainian Nationalists exhibited hatred for the Jews is illustrated by the following.

At the first sitting of the renewed municipal council in Zolkiew, the new head of the city, the baker Tziuropilovitz, an unscrupulous type of a person, a genuine plunderer, and a participant in Petliura's army, proposed to remove the Jews from the boundaries of the city and to re-settle them in the nearby village of Wola-Wysocka. When his proposal was not accepted by the Germans, as the Germans were already working on a much more radical agenda to the solution of the Jewish question, the bloodthirsty head of the city proposed that at least, the Jews should be prohibited from using the local market. This proposal was accepted by the Germans in time, but in a slightly different way.

During the first days of the Nazi occupation of Zolkiew, the Germans seized Jews to do various forms of labor which were accompanied by beatings, abuse and denigration. The Jews hid in their houses, in attics and cellars.

As the number of people taken for work continued to grow each day, one could see danger ahead if and when the Germans would begin to search for Jews in hiding. The Jews created an unofficial committee in July, consisting of Dr. Otto Schlusser, Dr. Moshe Sobol, and Dr. Avraham Shtraich, which intended to regulate the issue of providing people to fulfill German demands and work requirements.

The committee members visited Jews in their homes and warned them of the dangerous situation if they did not appear for work.

[Page 347]

As a result many more adult men presented themselves for work, motivated by a feeling of responsibility for everyone in general.

The municipal committee was invited to see the German Senior Officer who told them that the Jews were to create a permanent body of representatives, a Judenrat, which would serve as an intermediary between the Jews and the German authorities. The central purpose of this advisory council was to provide the required number of Jewish workers demanded by the Germans, and also carry out directives and demands issued by the authorities upon the Jews. This is how the Judenrat was created in Zolkiew. It was composed of prominent people, the intelligentsia, and activists of the community, including Dr. Fyvusz Rubinfeld – Chairman, Dr. Avraham Shtraich and Dr. Philip Czaczkes – Vice Chairmen, Nathan Apfel, Sender Lifschitz, Yehoshua Czaczkes, and Israel Shapiro – members of the council.

Soon after the Germans entered Zolkiew, the Jews were driven out of their homes that were on ul Kolyuba, and ul Lanikivitz, the streets by the train. These were the central streets of the city with the most beautiful and comfortable houses. It was forbidden for Jews to even cross over and walk on these streets.

Soon, the Jews were forbidden to use the sidewalks. They were ordered to walk only in the center of the streets, and specifically in those places set aside for coach transport. Then, after a few days, the Jews were ordered to wear a visible badge of shame, to manifest their Jewishness. Every male and female Jew from the age of 12 and up, were ordered to tie a white strip on their right arm, 8-10 cm. wide, with the Magen David symbol woven into it. The hours during which Jews were allowed to be out in the city were reduced, and they were forbidden to leave their houses after 5:00 PM. In accordance with the directives of the Nazi authorities, the Jews were permitted to buy agricultural produce from the farmers in the surrounding area only between 10AM -12 Noon, after the non-Jewish residents had completed their shopping.

A militia of Ukrainians were charged to ensure that these orders were followed during those first days, and they took advantage of every opportunity to sadistically torture the Jews through their unique methods.

[Page 348]

Young women of Zolkiew bound with the band of shame according to Gestapo orders
(From left to right:) Klara Letzter, Luba Czaczkes. Genya Astman, Mushya Edelhart, Asich'eh Sokhashchivaska		(From left to right:) Shayn'keh Wolf, Anzha Templesman, Bashk'eh Shtraich, Lushka Shapiro

Jews who were suspected of being sympathetic to communism were imprisoned and executed without a trial. During those first days, the Hamerman sisters were arrested and transferred to Rawa-Ruska, where they were executed without a trial.

The entire Libohl family was imprisoned in this way, and taken to be executed, including the father, mother, and several children. This was because two of their daughters who belonged to the communist party managed to flee while there was still time.

During those first days after the conquest of the city, an army officer served as the local commandant. After the activities of the war moved away from the city in the eastward direction, a German named Rokendorf arrived to serve as the local officer or Lands

[Page 349]

Kommissar. Rokendorf claimed to have been the local office of Pyotrykov-Trubunalski up to that point. His first act in Zolkiew was to levy a tax on the Jews of the city in the amount of 250,000 rubles, five kilograms of gold, and 100 kilograms of silver, required to be paid within three days.

On one of the days prior to levying the tax, the Ukrainian police arrested several important and rich people: Dr. Wachs, aged seventy, Israel Patrontacz, Mrs. Tzirl Kharry (after they couldn't find her husband), the brothers Eliyahu and Markus Kharry, Yoss'eh Post, Leib Patrontacz, Yehuda Schlayan, Sender Lifschitz, Simcha Tirk and the head of the Judenrat, Dr. Fyvusz Rubinfeld. All together eleven people were arrested.

On that day, the Ukrainian police took advantage of every opportunity to beat abuse and denigrate the Jews. Some of them, including Aharon Astman, were beaten to the point that they bled. After these eleven prisoners were brought to the jail, they, and the community, were notified that the previously mentioned levy was placed on all the Jews of Zolkiew, and, if the levy was not paid on time, the hostage prisoners would be shot to death. The rest of the Jews could look forward to more severe assaults.

In order to clarify the matter of the levy (kontribucia) to the local Jews and to organize the collection of the monies, Dr. P. Rubinfeld, the president of the Judenrat, was released. The remaining hostages were kept in prison.

A great terror fell upon the Jews of Zolkiew. The Jewish committee, appointed to carry the burden of allocating the burden of the levy among its citizens, worked day and night without ceasing. The imminent calamity pending for all of them brought matters to such a point that all of the Jews, mostly the poor among them, participated in a symbolic fashion with the amount of 18 rubles, to redeem the lives of the hostages The wealthy turned over their gold and silver items, among which were inherited mementos passed down from one generation to the next. Despite the many difficulties, the levy was turned over in its entirety to the conquerors at the demanded time, and the hostages were released.

At this opportunity, it is necessary to stress that there were instances of philanthropy from the non-Jewish community through their extension of help to the Jews. For example, a certain Catholic priest turned over a substantial sum of money to the committee as a way of participating in the levy. This action, taken by this revered priest, raised the spirit of the Jews, and he earned their gratitude.

As they did not have a connection to the enormous tax levy paid by the Jews, the general population began to empty out the homes of the Jews of furniture, rugs, window shades and all their possessions deemed to have value. These possessions were taken to the homes of the conquering Germans and those sympathetic to them.

[Page 350]

Notices were made public by the Judenrat and posted outdoors in the city at the end of December 1941, stating, in accordance with the orders of the German authorities, on pain of death, the Jews were obligated to turn over all the items they owned made of fur, by noon, January 1,1942 to the army of the authorities, including fur scarves, leather gloves, fur hand coverings, slippers and shoe accessories. The Jews fulfilled the demand this time as well. There were more than five thousand furs collected from the men and women of the city.

The Germans did not spare the dead, and poured out their savage anger on the Jewish cemetery in Zolkiew as well. This cemetery was established in the 17th century when Jews began to settle in Zolkiew. The Germans uprooted the sacred ancient headstones and used them to pave and repair roads. This destructive work was called by the euphemistic name, Strasse-Bau, or Street-Building. Jews were forced into this work of desecration as well, and they had to uproot and wreck the headstones of their dear ones with their own hands.

In order not to completely lose the signs of the graves in which their ancestors were interred, the Jews created signs, and stated that they intended to restore headstones for the members of their families who were desecrated.

Moshe Babad, Emanuel Ha'i and the engineer Lichtenberg worked out a restoration plan for the future. To my great pain, all the markers and plans that they had prepared, were lost with the death of these men. The cemetery disappeared entirely after its ground was plowed over, and for a long time it stood as a silent witness to the extermination of solitary Jews and entire groups, for their various sins. These were sins such as leaping from the death-trains on the way to the Belzec death camp, for Jews found living on the outside the ghetto, for destroying the Magen-David that the Jews were obligated to wear at all times, and the gravest sin, that a Jew had the temerity to remain alive after the Germans announced that Zolkiew was already Judenrein.

At all times, the Germans invented new tasks to torture the Jews and force them to violate their faith. This was why the Jews were ordered to shave their beards and sidelocks. Many of them who observed mitzvot, were embarrassed to go outside when their beards had been shaved, and would wrap their faces in handkerchiefs.

In a similar fashion, Jews were forbidden to pray as a group or to celebrate their holidays in public.

In the remainder of the walks of life, the Jews were also caused to suffer both spiritually and physically.

After the Judenrat was established in accordance with the orders of the German authorities, the local commanding officer designated that it was the personal responsibility of the Judenrat members to have all Jewish men and women present themselves at the Judenrat building every morning. The Germans came there as well, armed with their whips, and selected workers from the gathered folk for their needs. This selection

[Page 351]

process was accompanied by rounds of beatings and abuse that considerably oppressed the Jews who came to that place. After efforts made by the Judenrat, the order was modified and the responsibility to appear was limited to only a portion of the Jewish residents in accordance with a set procedure. Nursing mothers, children and sick people were released from this obligation. There was also a time when permission was granted to those obligated to appear, to send other people in their place, as understood, with payment of their salary from their own pocket, or by payment of a fixed amount to pay other workers. The Judenrat used these monies for the needs of social assistance, and to add to the funds for bread for the workers.

The attitude of the Germans towards the Jews in this period can also be understood from the following fact. Jews working at the train station were required to carry 5,000 liter containers of oil. One of the oppressors who oversaw the Jews at the train station beat them cruelly with a heavy stave while saying: ‘The nation of fools, you want to do battle with us!’

On the authority of the Landes-Kommissar, a Jewish militia was organized alongside the Judenrat, and was called Ordnungs Dienst. Dr. Philip Czaczkes, a member of the Judenrat, was designated as its head, and he was assigned eighteen men for this Jewish Militia. At the beginning, its mission was to provide the exact number of working Jews at the specified time, and to oversee order in the Jewish ghetto. However, in time, the demands increased both for the number of workers and also for other services.

The Jews worked loading and unloading merchandise at the train station. They assisted with the mechanical repair of trains. They cleaned the streets used by tanks, cannons, freight trucks, and paved and repaired the roads, which the conquerors called Street-Building (Strassen Bau). This writer published a picture album with the title, The Extermination of Polish Jewry, in which a photo illustrates this type of work, on pages xv-–xviii, and 104. While they worked, the Jews were tortured mercilessly by the German guards, appointed Ukrainian guards, and others.

The first martyr of the assaults and torture of the workers was Mendl Harschtrit. He worked a few kilometers from the city, and he was beaten to death. He left behind a wife, and a six-year-old daughter.

After the pogroms and spilling of blood that took place in the first days after the German conquerors entered the city, matters settled down somehow. Yet the murder of a young man like Mendl, for no reason, provoked terror among the Jews, and almost all the people in town participated in the funeral for this martyr.

In calling for withholding tears in the streets of the city, Dr. Shtraich, a member of the Judenrat said: ‘This is a great loss, but despite our enormous pain, we need to exercise self-control and in a decisive order, because we have to be ready for everything.’

The fact presented below bears witness in a clear fashion on the legal status of the Jews under German rule.

[Page 352]

After the murder of Harschtrit, the Ukrainian inspector of the town wanted to formally inspect the cause of the murder. To do this, he turned to the German officer of the workers' camp for non-Jews, even though it was known that the deceased was murdered by this group, and asked permission to document the incident. With a Satanic mockery on his lips, the German officer took him over to the wall, drew a large insect there and said: ‘this is what a Jew is worth in the eyes of the Germans. And seeing that there is no punishment for killing an insect, the same applies in connection with the murdered Jew.’ The German officer said that there was no reason for the inspector to be involved in this matter.

Many Jews were martyred following this incident, as they were seized in the second Aktion that took place in the middle of March 1942. This Aktion took place on Friday in the afternoon. Suddenly, by surprise, S.S. men came from the work camp at Lacki-Wialki near Zolkiew, and began to vigorously seize Jews. More than sixty Jews were taken in S.S. vehicles to Lacki-Wialki, where they died from hunger, beatings, and other inhuman tortures.

A few days after this Aktion and the transfer of the Jews to Lacki-Wielki, Elazar Stein, who had been among those taken, succeeded in escaping, and he returned to Zolkiew. Elazar fled from the work camp on Friday, and by Sunday a special emissary from the S.S. visited the Judenrat in Zolkiew, and harshly demanded the immediate return of Elazar Stein in order for him to receive a punishment befitting his escape.

The Judenrat tried in every way to convince the S.S. Man that Stein had not returned to Zolkiew, because the Judenrat did not know about him. But the S.S. Man was not persuaded. Belitzky, a Jewish doctor from the work camp, came along with the S. S. Man, and let it be known that the S.S. were preparing to murder thirty Jews who were seized and brought to Lacki if the fugitive was not returned. The Judenrat sensed the seriousness of the danger faced by the Jewish people in the camp. Belitzky decided to turn Stein over to the S. S. Man, who brought Stein to the camp, where he was hanged.

The Judenrat attempted to ease the fate of those who were seized and sent to the work camp. Together, with the family members who remained in Zolkiew, they sent packages of food to them once a week. The Judenrat even looked after those who did not have relatives in Zolkiew, and sent them personal packages.

Ephraim Landau, a member of the Judenrat, who brought the packages to the Lacki-Wialki labor camp, also gave valuable gifts to the S.S. Men and the Ukrainian Militia. The intention was to buy an improved relationship with the Jews in the camp, and to have the guards refrain from assaulting the Jews or causing additional suffering. One time, Ephraim Landau, arrived at the camp with Shimon Wolf, another Judenrat member, and they witnessed the following terrifying scene.

They saw David Astman, from Zolkiew, in the camp. His physical condition had deteriorated and he was in the process of digging his own grave. Landau and Wolf offered a significant amount of money to the S.S. Men in order to spare the life of David Astman, and this is how he was saved from death.

[Page 353]

Seeing that David Astman was no longer fit for work, and close to death, the S.S. Men facilitated his release. It was through David Astman that we became aware of the terrifying living conditions of the Jews in this work camp. He told us that every day, before dawn, they were forced to go on foot to the workplace which was 12 kilometers away. They worked all day without any rest, under the watch of Ukrainian Militiamen who did not spare beatings and assaults. After completing work, they returned on foot. They were given 100 grams of bread to eat, one liter of soup which was mostly water, and a portion of black coffee. There is no basis on which to wonder about the large number of martyrs in this camp, which was built even before the Janow work camp in Lvov.

The central purpose of the Judenrat was to provide the number of workers demanded by the Germans, to answer to the needs of the Gestapo, the Landes-Kommissar, the Police Chief, the Schutzpolizei (German Security Police), the Ukrainian officers and the militiamen. In addition, the fate of the Jews was left in their hands.

In the interest of staving off anticipated trouble, gifts streamed about. Mementos and money earned by hard work, valuable goods, furs, furniture and the like, were sold or transferred to the hands of the Germans who assaulted them.

As I have already recalled, up to the outbreak of the war, the Jewish residents in Zolkiew were generally well off. Knowing this, the Judenrat used threats in order to extract as much money, and valuable items from the Jews as they could, believing that this extra care would help to rescue the Jewish residents from the hands of the German Moloch^[3] who proved difficult to satisfy.

It is worth noting that the Judenrat did succeed in satisfying the German authorities through bribery and gifts, which it distributed generously. To the shame of the entire world, the names of the German gendarmes and Ukrainian militiamen who murdered thousands of Zolkiew Jews, innocent of any wrongdoing are: the local Kommissar Rokendorf, the head of the S.S. in Zolkiew, the German gendarmes Kotahr, Heisler, Krupp and Sandor; the Ukrainian militiamen: Romanczuk, Fidhoricki and Popowitz, and others. This behavior of the Judenrat resulted in the Gestapo leadership in Lvov to significantly reduce the assaults on the Jews of Zolkiew, and to not accelerate their extermination, in order to continue reaping income for themselves.

[Page 354]

This provides a sort of an explanation as to why the first Aktion for extermination took place, later than others, in November 1942. Even the final Aktion, at the end of March 1943, came much later upon the Zolkiew Jews, in comparison to the eradication of the other remaining cities in the Lvov Valley.

The ‘gifts’ that the Gestapo in Lvov received from the Judenrat in Zolkiew so pleased them to the point that they found it proper, to always advise them of what they were preparing to carry out against them.

Matters reached the point such that a group of Gestapo men traveled to Zolkiew every Sunday in order to hunt in the forests around Zolkiew. The Judenrat was required to provide the Gestapo men with Jewish runners to hunt. However, the Gestapo people were more interested in the gifts they received from the Judenrat than in the quarry from their hunt.

The committee working with the Judenrat to prepare the gifts was called by the melodic name, Zach-Leistung's-Kommision, the Committee for the Requirements of Service. The Jews who worked there called it a more appropriate name, Raub Kommission, The Plundering Commission, because in many cases, the commission needed to employ threats in order to extract the gifts from their owners. Yaakov Altin was the head of this commission.

The German authorities promulgated an order at the beginning of 1942 which required every Jew to appear before a medical committee to establish one's fitness to do physical work. Three categories were instituted:

1. Category A – Completely healthy and able to do difficult physical labor
2. Category B – Healthy and able to do physical work that is less demanding
3. Category C – Not suitable to do physical work

The regional doctor in Zolkiew demanded specific fees in silver and precious stones in order to designate the people he examined in category C. There were a number of healthy people who succeeded in being included in this group.

[Page 355]

Those who were examined did not have to wait long for the results of these medical exams. On March 15, 1942, close to Passover, Gestapo Men arrived at the Zolkiew castle. The members of the Judenrat were told to present themselves immediately. When they arrived, they were arrested and escorted by Schutz Polizei to the Judenrat office, to retrieve the list of the Jews who had been registered in category C.

The Gestapo officer notified the Judenrat that these people would not be harmed. They would be sent to dry out swamps in the vicinity of Pinsk, where they would live and work. To prove that this was true, those who were sent away were permitted to take personal necessities with them.

The city was divided into sectors and each of these sectors had a Gestapo man, aided by one of the Jewish Militia with a detailed list of the people in his sector who were selected to be taken away.

This is how the First Aktion, which impacted approximately 700 Jews, was carried out. If a person on the list was not found at home, another person from the house was taken in his place. This was how the sister of Moshe Yaakov Shtiller was taken in his place. Since the Aktion was to take place close to Passover, several observant Jews took matzos along with them for Passover, assuming that they would not be able to get it at the new location. As was later clarified, those who were sent away no longer needed to use the matzos because they were exterminated in Belzec even before the start of Passover.

At the end of this unfortunate project and in order to complete their cover, the Nazis seized other Jews they encountered along the way, even those who were not on the list of those unfit to do work. Therefore, it turned out that those who had work cards in hand were saved by an hour from the death that was waiting for them.

In order to mislead the Jews, and to conceal their end goal, the Gestapo staff utilized a satanic approach. They released everyone who had been taken away if they could prove that they had a work card. The Jews began to believe that the work really represented safety against being taken away, and a strong movement returned to obtain work cards. People began to acquire such cards at any price and to do this. They sold their clothing, and made use of the last of their resources, which they believed would save their lives. They felt that the work card provided some security against a worker being harmed.

In the meantime, the families of those seized in the first Aktion, tried by all means, to find out something about the fate of their relatives.

[Page 356]

The Jews heard a rumor that people taken away in the Aktion were sent to Belzec. Despite the fact that they did not know that there was a death camp there, several Aryans were sent, including one Gestapo man, to investigate the matter, but their efforts were in vain. The traces of all those taken away vanished. The secret was revealed only after some time.

Two women who were seized during the Aktion returned after wandering for several days. After Minna Astman and Malka Taufenfeld shook off a bit of the terror they experienced, they told others about their tribulations.

They were transported in locked freight trains to the death camp at Belzec where they were ordered to strip naked as the day they were born. This aroused a great fright among all of them. One of the more forward ones, Yaakov Segal asked the Gestapo man standing beside him: Why are we being asked to undress? He offered this sadistic reply joyfully: ‘you are going to die.’

Segal hugged his wife and amidst crying he said to her: ‘Let us part, because these are the last minutes of our lives.’

Upon hearing his words, the rest of the Jews burst into tears and embraced one another. At that same moment, the Germans ordered the men to stand on one side of the hut, and the women and children to gather on the other side. Afterwards, the women were shown where to go when they entered the hut. The women did not hurry to fulfill the order as if they knew what awaited them. The first to enter was the wife of Marcus Gutman, together with her, her daughter Sofia. After them, the rest of the women entered.

In the midst of the crying and disorder and lack of experience by the Germans (this was the first group sent to the death camp at Belzec), Minna Astman and Malka Taufenfeld took advantage of the situation and jumped into a drainage channel beside the hut. They remained there until the night. No one knew they were there. Under the cover of the darkness of the night, they stealthily left the camp and returned to their houses.

Many people did not consider this tale to be credible. Now that we know what happened in the death camp at Belzec according to the eye-witness report of Joseph Radder, the only living witness from this camp, we understand that a flight of this sort, as related by Astman and Taufenfeld, was possible only at the beginning, before the Germans established their precautionary measures against escape. The matter of the escape by these two women was guarded as a deep secret, and told only to a privileged few.

Similarly, Kulikovich, a Christian man, was sent to the area of Belzec by Hernand Tamfalsman. When he returned to Zolkiew, he told the following version of their story:

A side rail was prepared at the Belzec train station which was enclosed by barbed wire that reached the nearby forest, and even the forest was surrounded by closely placed barbed wire.

[Page 357]

The minute that the train bearing Jews reached the station, the Polish mechanic was relieved by a German mechanic, who brought the train to its designated spot in the city. For a while one could hear the groans of hopelessness and frightful screams, and they grew weaker in steps until they stopped entirely. The train would then return, without its people, but just with their clothing only. A column of smoke rose from the area of the camp!

Details of this kind were conveyed in the letters written by the women who reached home, according to the writing of the Zolkiew resident Moshe Zilber. The contents of this letter were conveyed by Michael Melman and Meir Berisz Schwartz, who read it with their own eyes.

We are going through terrifying times. In our own ears, we hear the cries of our brethren who were exterminated in the area of the camp. In order to drown out the voices of those doomed to die, they use a siren before the train reaches the extermination point, whose loudness grows from minute to minute, and drowns out the groans of the unfortunate ones. We are writing all this to you, in order to advise you of the bitter truth about Belzec.

Along with the Judenrat in Zolkiew, a committee was established to look after the poor of the city, orphans and the elderly, and property.

The source of income for this committee were the payments the Judenrat received from the Jews of the city as a form of community tax, and from payments made by Jews who were released from the obligations of work, for example, craftsmen, who conducted illegal shops in their homes. The Judenrat received payments for food cards, and from the time the ghetto was erected, payments to their post office.

The committee's social assistance support consisted of small amounts of money for food, ration and medicine cards at no cost, a medical examination, money for soup during the afternoon, and from time-to-time, additional money for bread for those who were sent to work on a permanent basis.

In addition to this, there was a committee to supervise the sanitary conditions in the homes of Jews in their neighborhood. This committee carried out strict inspections to prevent the spread of infectious diseases and to see where immediate medical help was needed.

[Page 358]

As Zolkiew is located on the road between Lvov and Rawa-Ruska which leads to Belzec, terrifying news continued to come from the Belzec death camp. Jews were being cremated while they were still alive. They were killed with electric current and poisoned in gas chambers. Many Jews tried to escape any way they possibly could while in transport on the death trains. They jumped out of the trains through the narrow windows or broke off boards from the sides or the floors of the locked train cars, an undertaking that was fraught with risk. As a result, many of them were killed by falling under the train cars or from wounds they incurred when they jumped out, mainly at the hands of the Gestapo guards, and the men of the German Security Police (S.P.), who shot at them from the railway train carriers in which they sat.

Those who jumped and remained alive needed special help. First of all, it was necessary to hide them in the midst of the city, from the German Police and the Ukrainian Militiamen, who fired, without hesitation, at any Jew who could not prove that he was one of the residents of the city. Similarly, it was necessary to convey the wounded to other cities in which it might be possible to receive medical help, clothing and food. This was possible only after they healed, and of course it was illegal to return them to their prior homes. The Jews of Zolkiew showed a heartfelt bond with these individuals, and provided much help to the jumpers. Day after day, one could hear the continuous firing of machine guns from the vicinity of the railroad tracks, which for us was like a vision of nightmares, since we knew that a train full of hapless Jews was passing through on the way to Belzec. We were overcome with emotions of pity and fear. A short time after a train passed by, we received news that wounded jumpers were lying beside the railroad tracks. With their forged permission from the Police Chief, a group of sanitary workers went out with stretchers and wagons, and moved the wounded to a Jewish area, where they were given immediate medical attention consistent with their injuries. The lightly wounded were hidden in houses and the heavily wounded were taken in at the hospital.

Zolkiew did not have a separate hospital for Jews during the time of German occupation. Thanks to the good relations between the Judenrat and the German Police in the beginning, because of the bountiful gifts that were given at every incident, the local German authorities did not react at first when wounded jumpers were brought to the municipal hospital, even though there was a strict and explicit prohibition against this. The non-Jewish doctors who worked in the local municipal hospital accepted the Jews willingly, and extended full medical assistance, because the Judenrat paid them for their medical care.

In the second half of 1942, the German authorities forbade hospitals from accepting sick Jews, and from then on, the help for these martyrs with many serious injuries, was terminated. The German gendarmerie forbade any one to extend help to those among these unfortunates. The gendarmes would go out to the train, look for the wounded jumpers and murder them on the spot.

The following is an excerpt from the testimony of Hieronym Meiseles, born in Lvov in 1934, and currently lives in an orphanage, who, in November 1942, jumped from a train near Zolkiew on its way to Belzec. This testimony is recorded in the central archive of the Jewish Historical Committee, because it was received by the Jewish Historical Committee of the Valley in Cracow, under number 814.

[Page 359]

Several of the men had tools they used to cut the barbed wire on the windows of the train cars, and a number of them escaped. My mother jumped during the train trip and her legs were wounded. I also jumped following my mother, and I fell hard on my head. My grandmother, who was very observant, did not want to save herself. She said that if her fate is sealed to die, it is her will to die together with the remaining Jews. My mother escaped to the ghetto in Lvov, and I lay unseen among the men who were murdered while jumping from the train.

The appointed orderly (Ordnungsman) who happened by chance to be a Jewish militiaman, whose job it was to remove the dead from the railroad tracks, took me to Zolkiew where I remained for two weeks. I don't know what happened to me, because during these two weeks my consciousness returned to me only twice. My mother found out that I was in Zolkiew, and succeeded in getting me into the ghetto in Lvov.

The members of the Sanitation Committee carried out their mission with great commitment despite difficult circumstances and risks to their own lives. This committee consisted of Dr. Henryk Wachs, Nurse Papka Fish, a professional sanitation worker, Dr. Israel Kikan, a past school director and outstanding teacher, who, before the war, authored curriculum for various educational subjects of the time; Zvi Ungar, the principal of the Tarbut School; the lawyer Idek Bendel, as an officer; Yaakov Strom, a teacher; Dr. Yaakov Rittle, a teacher; Moshe Altin, a researcher; Fishl Sukhaczewski, and Gershon Taft, both of whom were teachers.

We especially note Mrs. Papka Fish ז”ל, for voluntarily giving help to the sick and wounded out of the goodness of her heart and commitment to this work. More about Papka Fish can be found in the material about the Holocaust.

In a similar fashion the young Jewish girls who participated in the work of the committee, particularly with Papka Fish, were Klara Latzter, Mundzh'eh Dagan, and Klara Schwartz. Only Klara remained alive, and wrote about her work in the committee in her diary.

The sanitation worker Papka Fish has a heart of gold. Several young women, including me, assist her in her work. I am now going with her to make bandages and collect clothing and food. We get a bit of money from the Judenrat. As Jewish scions of our city, they help out as best they can. For the greater part of every day, I am out of the house, in the hospital or in the city.

Many Jews who were seized in a variety of Aktionen jumped from the train cars that were taking them to Belzec, and then fled. Thanks to the work of the Sanitation Committee, many of the sick were cured of their illnesses and disabilities and regained their strength. Regrettably, many of these saved people met death in other Aktionen or other work camps.

The Nurse Papka Fish – during a medical procedure

[Page 360]

The work of the Sanitation Committee increased when a spotted-typhus epidemic broke out after the Aktion in November 1942. As previously noted, Zolkiew did not have a hospital for Jews at that time. However, as the plague intensified, a temporary hospital opened on ul. Turynka, in order to fight the typhus epidemic spreading among the Jewish residents. A primitive hospital was set up in two houses, one outside the ghetto, in six or seven rooms, with practically no beds or pillows.

Because the typhus epidemic spread so widely, it was not possible to transfer all of the sick individuals to the hospital, and the battle against the plague did not produce the desired results.

The Jews carry the sobriquet of being The People of the Book. Even in the most difficult of times they made sure their children were educated, at whatever the cost. It was strictly forbidden for Jews to attend municipal schools and the Judenrat was not permitted to conduct schools for Jewish children. However, the young people, thirsty for knowledge, asked their former teachers when school would resume. It was suggested that it was possible to form classes with small groups of perhaps 6-8 students. There were 30 qualified teachers in Zolkiew during 1940-1941. The parents were interested in having their children learn the standard subjects, the Polish language, and Judaic studies. The teachers were given the mandate to prepare a syllabus that would include both secular and Jewish religious subjects.

Teachers were organized into two groups, and each group was responsible for 506 students who were placed in classes according to their level. One group of teachers included Dr. Israel Kikan, Zvi Ungar, and Gershon Taft, and the second group consisted of Prof. Yaakov Strom, Pola Strom, and Fishl Sukhaczewski. The teachers changed places in accordance with the subjects they taught, but the conditions related to changing classrooms were enveloped by many difficulties. The biggest problem was that classes took place in separate buildings, largely simple houses that were distant from one another. It was not always possible to walk freely in the streets of the ghetto because of the many dangers that lay in ambush on all sides, such as being grabbed to do work, inspection of work cards, Aktionen and the like.

The community had faith in the teachers and worked with the Judenrat to help them and get them released from other work.

[Page 361]

In addition to these groups there were studies for more mature children as well, who received their education from a variety of teachers, including the several women who were teachers and deeply involved. This included Professor Berta Friedman, Sabina Knopf, Chana Shalem, Janka Shapiro-Mandel, Lucia Kikan, and others.

To the credit of Jewish youth, they were serious, infused with the desire for learning and fully understood the difficulties and barriers which caused the ultimate failure of the teaching initiative. They took advantage of the time to their benefit, knowing that it was very possible that the very next day, they would not have the ability for free movement to attend classes.

The life of the Jewish youth was deeply affected by their circumstances. Even the very young lost their sense of enjoyment and amusement. The difficulties of hunger, cold, poverty, spiritual and physical suffering, daily concerns, news of the enemy that reached them, and the fear for the lives of their dear ones, stamped a seal on their mood, their thoughts and conduct. In order to ease things for the children and to help them forget the bad times, at least for a while, several teachers, especially those for the youngest children, tried to organize public appearances which involved readings, songs, circle dances, games and plays. In this way, the teachers were able, at least for a short time, to shield the children from the influence of the bitter reality and have them experience, and not for a fleeting moment, the world of the imagination, and good times. This had a strong influence on the Jewish youth. It bolstered their spirits and faith in the future. The teachers, Friedman, Knopf and Shalem, were outstanding in this regard.

Despite the assaults and torture by the Germans, not to mention the incineration and destruction of houses of worship, the Jews who were faithful to their religion managed to assemble in people's homes to pray together as an assembly. There were many such minyanim which especially attracted people on the Sabbath and Festivals. On those days, the time for prayer was set earlier, in order to not be late for work. There were instances on the Sabbath and Festival Holidays when these small prayer gatherings were forced to stop their worship. The men said the morning prayers early before work each day, and added the Musaf prayers towards the evening after they returned from work.

These minyanim were the only places in which the Jews could receive news about what was happening in the city and also in the world of the Judenrat after the Jews were driven into their locked ghetto in December 1942. Each of the newspaper readers gathered there to willingly and seriously explain what they had read. After their news discussions, people who had some contact with the outside world shared their information. Yehoshua Templeman, who had access to a radio despite the severe prohibition to do so, listened to the news broadcasts over the airwaves from London and Moscow, and he related all the news that he had heard. Every news item and every detail was expanded on. In every bit of news, the Jews saw a sort of shadow of hope that they would be rescued. They dreamed about the freedom that was drawing closer,

[Page 362]

the downfall of Fascism, and the return to order. They believed that Jews who survived the Holocaust would reach their Land and begin their lives anew.

Upon returning to their homes, they told the news to the members of their household and neighbors, and in this way, words of solace and encouragement reached all parts of the locked ghetto.

Consistent with their plans for the general extermination of the Jews, the Germans ripped away another form of making a living, and forbade the Jews to engage in mercantile businesses, shops, and work in free trades.

In order to survive somehow without earnings, the Jews were compelled to use their savings. When these were depleted, which happened very quickly because of the devaluation of the currency, they were forced to sell or trade everything they still had in their homes. They parted with clothing, pillows and pillow cases, valuable possessions, and everything that they owed in order to provide sustenance for their children and themselves.

The pace of emptying houses of all possessions took place faster among the ranks of the Jewish intelligentsia. The trade in household items for food increased. The people in the villages were very pleased about this occurrence as they cheaply obtained various items of clothing and valuable household goods.

A villager who brought a piece of butter, a bit of flour and other agricultural produce, went from house-to-house and demanded the most valuable items for his produce, such as clothing, white goods, and other things, and he got whatever he wanted. Luck favored these villagers in another way. According to the German authorities, the time during which Jews were allowed to go to the markets to buy the essentials they needed was severely curtailed. This permitted the Ukrainian militiamen to harass the Jews while they shopped, by striking them and even seizing them to do work. Because of this, many of the Jews survived on very little in order not to be found in the market, or they paid excessive prices to have the produce brought to their homes.

An illegal trade in smuggling sprang up among Jews who had connections with farmers. There were Jews who risked their lives to bring agricultural produce into the city, and later, into the Jewish ghetto. They sold these items at high prices, arguing that they have to not only earn a living from this but also cover the cost of the gifts of bribery that they had to give to the German Police, Ukrainian militiamen and the Volksdeutsche.^[4] This latter group ambushed the people fleeing from them, and squeezed them for a great deal of funds in order to be allowed to go their way. The well-known Kriegel stood out in activities of this sort. He extracted enormous amounts of money from the Jews.

[Page 363]

In general, the ones who fled profited handsomely, but the Jewish needy, who were forced to pay high prices, quickly ran out of money and valuables.

The nightmares of poverty and hunger quickly penetrated the houses of the Jews. The worst time was the period from spring to autumn in 1942. People fainted and died from hunger on the streets of the Jewish ghetto. The poor in the city ate potato peels and drank the water in which they were cooked.

The Judenrat operated a kitchen, and the number of people who came for daily meals grew rapidly. One frequently saw people whose eyes and faces were swollen from hunger, and who dragged their swollen feet around with difficulty.

An increasing number of people died from hunger and the lack of nourishment every day. The price of food increased daily. A kilogram of potatoes went up to 8 Gulden (Zlotys), and while a Jew still worked for the Germans, his pay was one Gulden and several groschen for a day's work.

During the summer of 1942, the Jews who were rounded up and sent away were actually being transported to their extermination in the Belzec death camp. These transports came as a result of the Aktionen that were carried out in various communities, and especially the Aktion carried out in Lvov during the month of August 1942. It swallowed up tens of thousands of martyrs.

The Germans usually began their terrifying Aktionen either during the middle of the week or on Sunday. Accordingly when Sunday arrived, the Jews spirits quieted down, believing that on this day their end was coming, despite not seeing any danger.

Since the Germans wanted to carry out the acts of extermination using the least amount of resources, they orchestrated surprise raids. Zolkiew was surprised in this way, when specifically on November 22, 1942 the activity began.

The great Aktion began at five o'clock in the morning. The Gestapo men and the German police, together with the Ukrainian militia, surrounded the streets on which the Jews lived. They wore steel helmets, and were all armed with guns, hand grenades, and axes in hand which were used to break open gates and doors. As they did not have faith in the usefulness of the Jewish Militia, the ordnungsdienst, they brought along such keepers of the peace from Lvov, who were appointed to keep order during the Aktion.

[Page 364]

In the course of two days, November 22 and 23, 1942, two-thousand-five-hundred men and women were seized and kept under the open sky in the castle courtyard of Zolkiew, where they remained cold and hungry. The Germans forbade them to move from that place, and anyone who tried to do so, was taken out of line and shot on the spot. I was among these prisoners.

On the afternoon of the second day, November 23, 1942, freight trains reached the station. The Jews assembled here, stood four to a line, accompanied by a heavy guard of S. S. peacekeepers who showed no mercy. The Jews were forced to run quickly to the train cars in order to avoid murderous beatings that were rained down upon them by their cruel guards. After they filled the freight cars, the doors were closed and the windows covered with barbed wire.

There were dozens of corpses in the castle courtyard in which the Jews were held until they were loaded onto the train. These people had been shot or strangled during the time they were forced to remain there.

At midnight, the train moved in the direction of Belzec. Now the vigorous job of creating holes in the doors, windows and floors of the train cars began, which permitted the people to try to escape. The work was done with tools and devices that had been prepared beforehand, to pierce obstacles in the train cars.

Many of the Jews always carried the various tools they felt they might need with them all of the time. They were careful to avoid being noticed by the details of guards so that their tools would not be taken away from them. The tools would be needed if an Aktion occurred without warning. Even when the Jews went into hiding places or bunkers, they took these tools with them. The Jews built hideouts and bunkers under their homes in secret locations. They dug underneath their houses to create bunkers, or fashioned hiding places in their attics.

Their tools they carried included small saws to cut wood, metal scissors to cut barbed wire, and a key to open up pipes, and other things.

These tools were needed to cut holes and saw the boards of the walls, the floors and the doors to the train cars, and also to pull out the metal wires with which they closed up the doors and windows of the train cars. Some made use of even more primitive tools such as knives, axes, metal rods, and in general all manner of break-in devices that they could get.

From time-to-time several groups worked in one train car. Some worked on making holes in the floor, and others in the walls of the train car, and so forth. There were instances when some of the escapees jumped out of windows, and others through a door that had been broken through.

[Page 365]

There were no tools for this in the train car in which I rode. But people did not give up. Their spirit did not leave them, and they decided, anyway, to try and free themselves.

At the time that a Polish worker was winding barbed wire on the doors and windows of the train car, a sum of 1,000 zlotys was collected and presented to him so that he would forget to use the metal rod to tighten the barbed wire on the window. The worker agreed to this, and at a moment when the Germans weren't looking, he threw the rod into the train car.

Using this rod, we first removed the barbed wire from the windows, and people jumped from the train cars, but it became clear that one such breakthrough was insufficient because of the large number of people in the train car who were prepared to jump. Therefore, we ripped out a board from the door of the train car. By crawling on our bellies we reached the stairs of the car and jumped out. This is of course, if in the meantime, we weren't hit by a Gestapo bullet from a guard stationed at the rear of the train car.

We heard gunfire during all of this time, shot by the guards at the Jews who were attempting to flee for their lives. Hundreds of dead and severely wounded lay along the length of the railroad tracks. In the area of the city of Zolkiew, about eight hundred Jews were killed, including those who jumped from the trains. These corpses were taken to Zolkiew and buried in the Jewish cemetery.

The local citizenry wandered about the railroad tracks that were being used to take the Jews to their extermination. These people were really animals who looked like people. They rushed the dead and the wounded and pillaged anything and everything they found on them, even the rags that covered the corpses that had not yet frozen. Jews who were severely wounded ended their lives amidst terrifying suffering from their wounds, loss of blood, and from hunger and cold. Those who held on until the next day were shot by the militiamen who found them as they guarded the railroad tracks.

Even those fortunate enough to have jumped without hurting themselves were not able to escape further because they were seized and killed along the way by the Germans or Ukrainians. Few people managed to reach home or safety after the scum of humanity, patrolling the surroundings, robbed them of everything they had. After jumping from a train heading in the direction of my home, all of my money and clothing were taken from me. I managed to return home wrecked, both spiritually and physically.

After the Jews were driven out, in addition to the thieving and robbery by the mob, the Germans diligently engaged, with the help of the Volksdeutsche, to take everything that the Jews owned. The volksdeutsche exhibited disgraceful behavior. Among them were the youths, Tilzer, Kargel, Ptasznik, Schlichtling, Daks, Simszkowicz, and Zarzitski. They forced the Jews out of their bunkers and other hideouts and turned them over to the German authorities. Ptasznik was particularly effective in robbing those Jews who were sent to their doom.

[Page 366]

Even among this disgraceful behavior and evil deeds, it is important to recollect that there were non-Jewish residents, people of noble spirit, who did good things and helped the Jews under pursuit. My intent here is to single out those who hid Jews in their homes, literally in the face of endangering their own lives.

With extraordinary commitment, and without financial incentives, Mrs. St. Polnia rescued five Jews and by doing this, saved their lives. Similarly, Bak Julia Valentin and her daughter, Alexandra (Aleh), rescued eighteen Jews and hid them in their house.

ul. Sobieska, the Synagogue Street and Principal Ghetto Street

In addition to the Jews living in Zolkiew, those from surrounding towns, such as Kulikovo, and Mosty'-Wielki were pushed into the Zokiew ghetto. During this transfer, they were escorted by German gendarmerie and a number of them were shot with the excuse that they were trying to escape.

[Page 367]

Because there were too few places in which to live in the ghetto, the Jewish refugees seized hold of the houses of worship, the Kloyz of Belz, and the Kloyz of Ziditshov, buildings that had already been partially destroyed. Men, women, and children were crammed together in three rooms, taking up every centimeter of the floor. A barbed wire fence was put up around the ghetto and Jews were forbidden to leave without special permission. A guard station for the Jewish militia was erected at the gate of the ghetto. Any Jew caught outside the ghetto was shot on the spot. The following attests to the Nazi rules:

At a set time on Sunday afternoon when Catholic and Russian Orthodox church goers come out of their churches, a young Jewish boy in the ghetto saw a woman holding a basket in which she had something for sale. He got a bit far away from the ghetto boundary in order to buy whatever it was she had in her basket. To his great misfortune, the German Volksdeutsche policeman Heisler, a German man from upper Silesia, an area that previously belonged to Poland, appeared at the same moment, grabbed the boy and dragged him to the gate of the ghetto. Heisler took out his revolver to shoot the transgressor. The boy cried bitter tears, and begged the policeman for his life, kissing his hand, but the cruel policeman took no pity. Even though his revolver didn't work on the first try, he made an extra effort to fix it until it was able to discharge a bullet that put an end to the boy's life.

Because of the terrible crowding and the lack of minimal hygienic conditions, a plague of spotted Typhus broke out in the ghetto. Ten or fifteen and sometimes twenty people died each day from the disease.

This plague caused a disaster particularly among the young. Practically every house had a victim. The Jewish cemetery workers could not dig enough graves for the dead, especially during the winter when the ground was frozen. Sometimes graves were dug at night, in the light of the moon, because there were so many bodies that it was not possible to manage burying them during the day. I cannot forget the bleakness in the house of the teacher, Chana Shallas. Her mother and husband died on the same day. Before they died, the hapless woman ran from bed to bed and in kissing her dear ones, she begged that they both be taken away. Or at the least, let her get infected by the disease and she too will die after them. But she did not have the privilege to die like them, a death of the chosen as they then called death from illness. She went through many tribulations until death finally claimed her in the hands of the German executioners.

The S. S. Sturmführer Papa, whose office was in Zolkiew, expressed his satisfaction with the death toll among the Jews that came about as a consequence of the spotted typhus. He expressed this satisfaction by saying: ‘Die Jüden krepiren jetzt zelbst.’ The Jews are dying off by themselves.

The plague abated a bit in February1943. In its place, news began to reach us about the activities of extermination, with the purpose to liberate the nations of the presence of Jews. We heard news about the killing of Jews, transports to death camps, and about those who still remained alive in the crowded ghettos.

[Page 368]

The city of Rawa-Ruska, which was about 30 kilometers from Zolkiew, was already emptied of Jews. The ghetto there had been liquidated by the second half of December 1942 by the S. S. man, Grzimek^[5] who later became the controller and ruler of the Julag^[6] in Lvov, and carried out the liquidation process there in early June 1943.

Many Jews began to think of ways to save themselves. Some considered the construction of secure hideaways as the anchor-point of their salvation. Others made an extra effort to establish contact with non-Jewish friends outside of the ghetto who were willing to offer help providing cover in their cellars or attics or other hiding places, or help to obtain Christian papers for Jews who could pass as Aryans.

A number of Jews suddenly vanished. Some placed their chances for survival on trusting Christian acquaintances to provide a hideout. Others, who were successful in getting Christian papers, went out and placed their fate in the destiny that awaited them.

However in each and every place the danger of extermination awaited them, and to our sorrow, many of them lacked all hope to be saved. The God-fearing among them held out for the hope of a miracle from the Heavens, but miracles did not materialize.

Further on, I quote excerpts from the diary of Isidore Hacht who hid in the Zolkiew area. These excerpts permit one to see how, and under what conditions, the hideouts were built underground, and how they were inhabited.

There are a considerable number of lighthearted comments in the following excerpts, spoken by one waiting, prior to execution. He had not yet lost hope and continued to believe in the victory of truth over lies.

First of all, the Germans began to relieve the Jews of our possessions by imposing heavy taxes in the form of contributions, afterwards, by limiting our movement in the ghettos, and finally, by taking our lives.

We were grateful for all of the ‘generosity’ showered upon us by the Germans, but all of these restrictions were speedily imposed, one after another. I, for example, expected to depart this life in another 40-50 years. I am, in general, in no hurry, but they want to carry this out before the end of this war.

[Page 369]

Because there were other important Jews like myself, we came to an agreement with Blumenfeld about how many good people we would put up in our refuge, which we called the Palace.

March 25, 1943. We are sitting in the hideout. There are four of us here, and we are waiting for better days, and for Philip M. who is the fifth tenant of our little Palace. This little Palace is part of the residential structure of many builders. We are living in an underground basement room. On the lowest level there are two pigs that cost 700 zlotys. There is also a rooster there. The top level was taken by four rabbits. Above us are a toilet and an attic, and in addition to this we are also hosting one cow. This is approximately how our Palace looked. It was an area with just two meters on each side. That is to say, with Jews, chickens, pigs and rabbits, we were the Aryan people.

In the meantime, German authorities wanted the Jews to be less aware of the spreading news that Zolkiew was to be transformed into a work city. All the Jews capable of work were to be sent to Zolkiew to work at trades required by the army. They would receive a special indicator, a “W” for Wehrmacht, and “R” for Rüstung, and in this way they could anticipate being safe from danger. In order to change over the city into a center for work, the German authorities demanded an increase in the number of Jewish policemen, from 18 to 50, beginning March 15, 1943, to strengthen the oversight on the implementation and organization of the work

According to the notification by the Germans, on March 15, 1943, we would have to facilitate the inspection of the skilled, mature workers. The extent of deceitfulness by the local German authorities is exemplified by the following occurrence.

Several days before the general assembly that was arranged to evaluate all of the Jews, the German authorities authorized a test assembly, ostensibly to inspect the crowd, determine their ability to work, and see if the Jews appeared as ordered. The head of the gendarmerie, Kotahr, was present at this test assembly. A contingent of S.S. men were the appointed officers who were to divide the crowd into the “W” and “R” designations.

The Judenrat wanted all of the workers to appear in a cooperative manner. The Jewish Militia helped to bring order to the central gathering place.

Kotahr, the head of the gendarmerie, arrived at approximately 10 o'clock. The commission to perform the inspection had already arrived, and communicated its desire that the examination should take place on the Sokol sports field.

[Page 370]

All of the Jews at the gathering place walked to this field in silence, overcome with a feeling that something was going to happen. The women especially felt that there was impending danger, and when the men walked to the designated place they burst out crying.

The men stood in a large square on the Sokol field. Very slowly, pushing in from different corners, the German gendarmerie and the Ukrainian militia surrounded the field on all sides and closed it up as if with a chain. All those assembled understood that this was a pre-planned deception from the outset by the Germans, and that the last hour of their lives had arrived. Those who were surrounded thought only of the means by which they would be liquidated, and how much time their agony might continue before they were put to death.

At approximately 11 o'clock, a good-looking car reached the field, and the executioners from the Janowa Camp in Lvov debarked from it: Willhaus, Kalanka, Heinische, Sillor, Braumbauer and the S. S. General Katzman at their head.

When Willhaus, an officer from the Janowa Camp saw the victims standing in an exemplary order, he ordered everyone to march to the exit gate of the field. Already waiting there were the transport vehicles consisting of freight trucks. Written on their side was the word, Askarim, which was the name of the auxiliary police in the German colonies of Africa. This time the men in this unit were Russians, members of the White Guards, Volksdeutsche and S. S. Men. While exiting the field, the Jews were cruelly beaten by these guards in order to hasten their entry into the freight trucks.

After the Jews were loaded into the trucks, a few were left on the Sokol field. They were members of the Judenrat, head craftsmen, and members of the Jewish Militia. They were ordered to fall into two rows. Kotahr, the head of the Gendarmerie, told Willhaus that most of the Jewish militiamen were new, and were to be counted separately for this task, because their mission was accomplished.

Willhaus then went up to the two rows of Jews that were standing in front of him, and ordered: ‘Alle neue Ordner heraustreten.’ All the new militiamen are to get out of the line! And after they did this, they were told: ‘Sie fahren mit!’ You are traveling with me! And these men were also pushed into the freight trucks. The Jews were told that they were being taken to the Janowa Camp in Lvov.

The Askarim then extracted as much additional money and valuables as was possible from the Jews, and promised them favorable conditions in the work-camp. They were promised extra bread and other food every day, but when they reached the camp, they would have to surrender everything they had. The Askarim took advantage of the sympathetic relations between the Jews and the Russians who said it was ‘better that you give us whatever you have rather than giving all this to the German murderers.’

On the same day, they transferred 618 adult men to the Janow Camp in Lvov. I was included in this group.

[Page 371]

The row of freight trucks that brought us to the camp was guarded by Askarim and S. S. Men. They traveled behind the freight trucks, armed with machine guns and ready to shoot any Jew who attempted to flee.

We reached the Janowa Camp in Lvov at about 3 PM. We were ordered to debark in a yard and to gather close together in one corner. Before nightfall, they stood us beside the administrative building of the camp, and each of us was ordered to turn over everything we had along with our papers. During this exhibition we were cruelly beaten by the S. S. Men. One of the S. S. who was especially cruel was a man who had lost a leg and a hand. He shocked all those who came to his table, and screamed: ‘Jetzt werden sie sich bekennen mit unseren Erholeungshaus! Dumestes Volk der Welt!’ Now you will come to know our healing facility, you stupidest among the nations of the world!

After a basic examination carried out on each of us, we were moved to Hut # 1 where we remained for the first night. Before we even had a chance to enter the hut, Pinchas Lieberman was shot by the known sadist Heinische, because one person in the group lost a hat. Lieberman was chosen as the victim, in order to clearly demonstrate to us what sort of punishments awaited us in the camp.

The transport from Zolkiew was divided into a number of different brigades. A significant number of the Zolkiew Jews were sent to Gorodok-Jagiellonski where a group was assembled for the Janowa Camp, called the house of the prisoners (Strassenbau). This group was turned over to the command of Kalanko, an S. S. Man who came from Maratzibarz (in Silesia). Another group of Zolkiew Jews were absorbed into camp brigades who worked in the yard of the camp and its surroundings. These men had a hard time as they always worked under the eyes of the S. S. Occasionally, Willhaus, the officer of the camp, visited, either by foot or riding his horse. The people in this camp had absolutely no connection to the outside world, and as a result they could not buy bread. They were condemned to death by starvation.

When the Zolkiew Jews were first brought to the camp, an incident occurred in which an S. S. Man was shot by a Jew in Czwarrtok, a small forest about 2-3 kilometers from the city of Lvov on the way to Kamionka Strumilova. Full of anger and outrage, and under the influence of the venomous propaganda against the Jews that was spread about during the funeral of the murdered man, the S. S. burst into the Janowa Camp and murdered people left and right. There were many Jews from Zolkiew among the 200 Jews killed on that day.

The Janowa Camp also swallowed up Zolkiew Jews who were sent to work in the camp at Mosty'-Wielki, which was close to Zolkiew. This camp was called Beute und Sammelstelle^[7] under the leadership of Überhermacht^[8] and directed by the Oberleutenant, Krupf, an Austrian by birth.

[Page 372]

This Krupf related to the Jews with a bit of humanity. Because of this, many of the Zolkiew Jews wanted to join this camp in order to avoid the fate of those ejected, or sent to the Janow Camp in Lvov. But in time, conditions in this camp worsened. After the control of the camp passed into the hands of the S. S., a number of Aktionen took place in which many of the workers in the camp met their end. The camp was liquidated on May 10, 1943, and those who were still alive, mostly the women, were murdered on the spot. A small group of adult men who miraculously saved themselves, and a young lady named Amelia Freund, were moved to the Janow Camp in Lvov, but even these people died after a short time from hunger and exhaustion, or they were killed in the Aktionen conducted in the Camp.

The condition of fear and helplessness ruled in during the period of the liquidation of the Zolkiew ghetto, occurring March 15 to March 25, 1943. Day by day, the remaining residents waited for the Holocaust that continued to get closer.

No man committed his soul to the destiny of the ghetto, especially after most of the adults capable of work had been removed and sent to the work camp at Janow. It was mostly women and children who were the last remaining people in the city. The entire order of life had been wrecked. Only a few solitary Jews presented themselves for work.

The calamity that took them aback came on March 25, 1943. At the break of dawn on that day, the S. S., Shupuvtzim, and Ukrainian militia surrounded the Ghetto. They wore steel helmets and were armed with rifles and axes. The axes were used for the task of tearing down gates and bursting into hideouts, and all places in which Jews could hide.

At the time of the Aktion, Heinische, an S. S. Man from the Janow Camp killed children, the sick and elderly with an ax. Most of the Jews, especially women and children, were seized and dragged to the Dominican square, and from there, they were taken by freight trucks to the forest, known as the Boork, where they were shot and buried in graves that were prepared in advance by Jewish workers. An S. S. Man came out to the central gathering point and asked: ‘Who among the Jews knows how to work with the earth?’ And when many answered positively, he took them in freight vehicles to the forest where they were ordered to dig their graves and the graves of their parents and members of their families.

In order to reduce wandering about and spare extra work, the Germans murdered the sick in their homes and hideouts with axes, and they killed the Jewish children by smashing their heads against the walls.

[Page 373]

Non-Jews who saw these acts of extermination testified afterwards that the streets of the Ghetto and the houses in it, were red and wet with the blood of the Jews who were murdered.

The Jews were murdered after being brought to the killing-forest. They were ordered to take off their clothing. After the guards performed a basic search for valuables, especially upon the women, the Jews were ordered to stand by the graves. Everyone was to walk separately onto the boards that were laid on the top of the graves. After they were shot, they fell into their graves. There were instances in which some who had been lightly wounded, or people who collapsed out of fear, fell into their graves while still alive, and they died after the graves were covered with earth.

The Christian residents also said that during the several days afterwards, it looked like the earth over the graves was moving.

Only a very small number of Jews, 100 men and 70 women, were actually transferred to the Janow Camp in Lvov.

The Jewish women of Zolkiew were the founding inhabitants of the women's camp that was part of the Janow Camp. These women worked in the ‘Dav’ (Deutsche tusristungs) of the Triko branch. Unlike other groups of women who were brought to the camp much later, the Zolkiew women kept their positions until the final liquidation of that camp which took place in November 1943.

The Germans proposed separating some of the women from their children and in this way the women could remain alive, and work in the Janow Camp. However, the women did not agree to this and immediately replied that they wished to die with their children. The teacher, Mandel, from the Shapiro family, serves as an example of such a decision.

In a similar manner let the wonderful example of one of the important men of our city, Simcha Tirk, be remembered. Tirk was an important craftsman. The Germans offered to keep him alive if was willing to be separated from his family. In response to this proposal, Tirk took his wife on his right side, and one of his sons on his left side, and with his head held high, walked to the place of extermination.

Another noted courageous act was demonstrated by the head of the Judenrat, Dr. Fyvusz Rubinfeld. When he was told after the liquidation of the Ghetto that he should move to the Jovany Camp, he replied: ‘I will go to the place where my brethren went!’ and he was murdered on the spot.

The Aktion ended at 7 o'clock in the evening. The only remaining people in the city were members of the Judenrat and the Jewish Militia, Sharman, Glozar, Durnfald, and others, who did not discharge their duties as required.

[Page 374]

After 7 PM, the remaining members of the Judenrat and Jewish Militia were ordered to assemble. These men were loaded onto freight trucks and were deceitfully told that they were being taken to the Janow Camp. In fact they were brought to the killing-forest and all of them were shot and killed. The hats, pictures, and other mementos that they threw away on their way to the forest proved that they understood they were being taken for extermination.

As they were experienced and expert in the art of self-protection, the Jews built hideouts and places of refuge in secret places that even the S. S. Men from the Janow Camp were unable to uncover. As a result, the end goal of eliminating all Jews from the city, making the city Judenfrei, did not completely succeed. The boundaries of the Ghetto shrunk and were confined to only the two streets named for Peretz and Sobieski.

Those Jews who remained alive, hungry and dispirited, became indifferent to their surroundings. They wandered about like shadows, and looked with their eyes frozen shut to the past. In order to confuse the Jews and eliminate the possibility of self-protection, the Germans spread the word that the surviving Jews had no reason to expect danger. The German authorities had decided to look after them, and as evidence, wagons full of bread and jam arrived at the shrunken Ghetto.

The morning of April 6 was designated as the time to distribute the wagons of food. The Jews gathered at the place for distribution at the break of dawn. It was here that the final Aktion took place. Most of the Jews were seized and killed, and buried in a mass grave. Very few of them were taken alive to the Janow Camp in Lvov. Now, Zolkiew was truly Judenfrei!

Only about seventy people, all expert craftsmen, remained alive. These Jews grouped together in one of the Blocks on ul. Sobieska. The officer of the Block was a refugee from Czechia whose name was Atingar. The Germans explained to the remaining Jews in the block, that because there were no craftspeople like them, they would be allowed to remain alive.

The Jews had their fill of German ‘truths’ and did not believe what they were told. A number of them tried to save themselves by fleeing the camp and some individuals did manage to survive. Among them were Emile Lifschitz, Nachman Schuman, Golda Kyfaruba, David Shakenhammer, Joseph Hochner, and Philip Mandel. Mandel later fell sick from a lung disease during the time of his concealment and died several days after the victory over the Germans.

This Block of work remained until July 10, 1943. Isidore Hacht wrote as follows about the liquidation of the Block in his diary.

In the morning when we stood as usual to be counted, those same Germans led us to work beside the train station. When they reached the workplace, the Germans and the Ukrainian militia surrounded them, and transported them by freight truck to the forest, the place they were to be exterminated, and where life ended for most of the Zolkiew Jews.

[Page 375]

It was only here and there, in the depths of the earth and high in attics, that very few Jews were able to continue hiding. Their Christian friends put their own lives in danger, sometimes without financial compensation, to save their Jewish neighbors. However because of the despicable deeds and oppression of the transgressors, who unceasingly sought to uncover the hidden, the small group of people who had been rescued to this point were still in danger of being found.

Occasionally, there would be a tragic tale of a Jew who was alone, or of several Jews together, who were seized and exterminated. In these terrifying instances, there was no lack of heroism and the brave heart of Jews. An example of this is Moshe Zaft, who attacked a German gendarme and a Ukrainian militiaman on watch, and wounded them with a steel rod when they tried to take him out of his hideout. Or the deed of Spiegel, who was seized by a Ukrainian militiaman and managed to commit suicide before the murderers could succeed in carrying out their death-decree.

There were also incidents of inhuman behavior on the part of Christians who supported the Germans in the extermination of the residual Jews who were hiding. There were a number of Jews who were in hiding and lost their minds in the aftermath of their suffering. And, there were those who reached a state of indifference; they stopped fearing death and saw it as salvation from their troubles. The details of these events are presented in the diary of Klara Schwartz.

Nevertheless, despite all of the inhuman pursuits and terrifying tortures that confronted this small group, the few Jews who remained alive did not lose their faith in the historic justice that was to come, and the rapid fall of Hitlerism.

This anticipated redemption, bought with the blood of their dearest, came on July 23, 1944.

Thanks to the commitment of its citizenry, the city was cleansed of its wreckage. They tore down the most badly damaged structures. The human wound that pierced the city in the wake of the extermination of most of its citizenry, especially its Jews, was not amenable to being healed. Of the 5,000 Jews who lived in Zolkiew at the outbreak of the war, a small group of about 70 people remained after liberty was restored.

The people who hid in refuges below the earth had not seen the sun in many months. Those who hid for many months in the forests among groups of partisans who fought for their freedom had to deal with difficult climate conditions while they hid. There were also people who hid with the gentiles by making use of forged Aryan documents and the like.

[Page 376]

Thanks to the kindness of some in the non-Jewish community, people on their own survived this most terrifying of experiences.

Finally, I feel that I bear a personal sacred responsibility, to underscore for eternal memory, the humane and wonderful relationship among all the Polish residents, with no exceptions, who, in the village of Bar, beside Gorodok-Janislowsi, put their lives in danger for the purpose of rescuing a group of more than twenty Jews, including me. We hid in the forests surrounding the village and were helped by its residents.

Translator's footnotes:

1. A translation from Polish to Hebrew of the folio, The Extermination of Zolkiew Jewry that appeared in Łodz in 1941 – published by the Central Jewish Historical Committee beside the Center of Polish Jewry. Return
2. Ukrainian, for the Jewish Community. Return
3. A pagan idol of antiquity to whom it was a common practice to offer human sacrifice. Return
4. Ethnic Germans whose forebears, or they themselves, emigrated into Eastern Europe in search of better prospects. Return
5. Prominently documented in the Ruska Memorial Book. See that book, P. 483 for details such as:
   Josef Grzimek (b. 10 November 1905 , d. 18 February 1950 ) - criminal Nazi. Return
6. Seemingly abbreviation used for Jüden Lager (The Camp of the Jews) Return
7. A Beautiful Collection Point Return
8. The Superior Armed Forces Return

  Zhovkva, Ukraine     Yizkor Book Project     JewishGen Home Page

Copyright © 1999-2025 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 24 Dec 2024 by JH